Another perfectly gray day for making art inside. I had a private student this morning, so it was the best excuse to fulfill my daily obligation. We went out in the wind and spewing rain and picked the last of my zinnias and flowers, and made a little still life to work from. It was a wonderful way to bring some sunshine to this stormy day.
The Setup
First we made value studies to see how the composition worked.
Then we made underpaintings.
Choo's under
my under
Then we fixed them with alcohol. While we waited for them to dry, we ate fresh apple cake I'd just taken out of the oven.
The rain has been coming down for a few days, and it's blowing like stink with Hurricane Joaquin stirring things up.
Looks like I'll have to move back into the house really soon because it's too cold to paint at the Top of the World. I was chilled to the bone after being over there for not even an hour, but I'm bound and determined to post a pic a day, so here it is:
Today begins an exercise in scheduling and discipline. My pastel artist friend Kim Morin Weineck just completed her 30 in 30 (30 paintings in 30 days) for the month of September. She inspired me to take on this kind of self-imposed challenge.
I'm going to do a variation where I paint for one hour (or more) a day, and post the result. Kim did thirty 8x8 pastel paintings. Since I already had one on the easel (12x24), I'll start with it (so, I guess this is really 33 days, or maybe I'll be done before Halloween). Disclaimer: I might count Teaching Nelson Telson curriculum activity drawings as part of this if I'm too strapped for time.
How it was 9/29, wish I'd taken a pic when it was just the underpainting last Thursday...
9/30 - almost done
One of my most favorite places in the world, Gurnet Creek, where you can float around at high tide and see beauty everywhere you look.
Up the Creek
12x24 pastel on Uart 500
Terry Ludwig makes some great colors including his Intense Darks and Shades of Nature that I employed here. Also, I love Unison BV (blue violets) for the clear sky, and Sennelier darkest green 179 and a really intense dark blue. I also really like the texture of Girault pastels, there's something magical about the way they are soft but can still cut a sharp line.
Hope everyone had a great summer; I certainly did. Max and I had a wonderful whirlwind propaganda drop at the ILA conference in St. Louis in July. Everybody there seemed to know Dr. Lars Helgeson, so it was very cool to talk curriculum agenda and hand out brochures and books. Next year's conference is in Boston. As we speak, twenty of Dr. Lars' students in his Life Science for Elementary School course at University of North Dakota are reading Nelson Telson and thinking about all sorts of ideas and activities for the curriculum. Meanwhile, I'm making coloring pages.
Over the past few weeks Dr. Lars and I were hustling to get our grant application for curriculum development submitted to the NIH. This is very exciting, and hopefully they'll agree that the Teaching Nelson Telson curriculum is something well worth funding. While putting the application together, we brought some awesome horseshoe crab experts onboard: Glenn Gauvry, Horseshoe Crab Guy from ERDG www.horseshoecrab.org, Gary Kreamer the Green Eggs and Sand guy from the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife, and keeper of the Teacher Toolbox at horseshoecrab.org, and Allen Burgenson, Manager of Regulatory Affairs at Lonza Walkersville, Inc., a biotech/pharmaceutical company that makes lots of LAL. He sits on the ASMFC (Atlantic States Fisheries Commission) for the horseshoe crab, and is biomedical industry representative on the joint team of ASMFC and the Shorebirds Commission. We are so lucky and fortunate to have these specialists on our committee. Now I need to find a Wampanoag person.
They're not dead horseshoe crabs, they are molts.
If you have ever wondered how the heck a horseshoe crab gets out of its shell to leave those molts, legs and all, check this out and wonder no more: Molting Horseshoe Crab
I've been a delinquent blogger, what with teaching, GIMPing along, and getting ready to do a one day propaganda blitz at the ILA conference in St. Louis in July. I've been working with Dr. Lars, my cohort in curriculum, to get the message as clear as a bell. Made new business cards, new brochure, created a free giveaway activity page, and dolled up that part of my website.
GIMPing along, you ask? As part of my transition to a new computer I went from adobe products like photoshop to the freeware GIMP - stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The going was rough in the beginning with functional fixedness from years of using photoshop. The only thing it doesn't do is allow copy/paste of text function (so far as I can tell), and I am the worst typist. It wasn't at all intuitive, or was it? Getting used to it ended up having every creative task with the making of collateral materials a real grueling, time-consuming adventure. But I got it done. Here's the brochure. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
And then I made my new business card:
Uploaded the files to my friends at Powder Horn Press, and I'm ready to go.
In addition to all of that, Lars thought it a great idea if we have a little giveaway so teachers can get a feel for what we'll be offering - a spiral curriculum that introduces topics that will promote lifelong inner growth of children. It's so cool to be working with a guy who really knows the teaching profession. He'll be taking the book to the Rudolf Steiner College (the Waldorf teachers' college) while I'm doing St. Louie. I am very excited - also a little scared to be spending all this money...
Just posted this to my kickstarter backers, so I'll share it with you:
Wow, it's been a year since Nelson Telson took off, thanks to your support. Although I've probably given away as many books as I've sold, some amazing things have happened. I have come to understand that the book fits right in to the country's STEM girl initiative - as a means to excite girls about careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. I have found out that, to quote Lars Helgeson, "It's a means to set the 'spiral curriculum' in motion, introducing topics that children will grow into all of their lives." Cool, eh? Lars and I are working on a curriculum. Nelson Telson will be required text for Life Science for Elementary School, T&L 472, at University of North Dakota, Fall 2015, where we will continue to develop and test the curriculum. Meanwhile, I make the activity pages - and prepare to go to the International Literacy Association conference in St. Louis in July. My biggest challenge right now is revamping my brochure so that it speaks to the STEM thing, the curriculum, and especially teachers, with the promise that all that testing and Common Core stuff is supported by Nelson Telson.
Without the actual curriculum ready to roll out, I am taking a leap, and flying on a wing and a prayer, spending money I don't have, but knowing it's already a done deal with the universe. How's that for faith?
I made a sticker to give out with the brochure in St. Louis. Want one?
Time is relative, but those monthly bills have their own unstoppable life cycles... When I lament that things aren't moving as fast as I'd like, my son reminds me that CocaCola only sold 2 bottles their first year.
Holding the course. Sailing uncharted waters. Grateful foramazon reviews and any promoting and sharing you do.
Visit Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod to find out more.